


these scars are mine

by alyse



Category: Terminator (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Families of Choice, Unconventional Families, quiet moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 05:20:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13047315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyse/pseuds/alyse
Summary: Sarah is twelve the first time she thinks about getting a tattoo.Sarah and Pops through the years.





	these scars are mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Unforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/gifts).



> For unforgotten, who wanted kid Sarah with Pops, and Sarah and Kyle making a life afterwards.
> 
> Happy Yuletide

Sarah is twelve the first time she thinks about getting a tattoo.

She's bored, stuck in the cheap motel room that Pops has rented for them in some shitty little backwater in south Texas, where there's nothing but dust and dirt for miles. She's not allowed to go out without him, not that there's anything to do anyway. It's a ghost town, or as good as. There's nothing that passes as a grocery store, just scattered blocks of broken down houses and battered trailers, tucked away out of sight of the rest of the county. 

There's not even a school, and she never thought that she'd be so bored she wanted to go to **school**.

She huffs out a breath, flapping her hand in front of her face like that's going to do anything to cool her down. The air conditioning is broken – that's if this place had ever had working a/c in the first place, no matter what the flashing neon sign outside said – and she can't even crack open a window. All she can do is strip off to cool down, and take as many cold showers as the creaking, groaning pipes will allow.

She hates this place, just like she hated the one before it and the one before that, but her hating it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that there's nothing to do, or that there's nothing to see. 

The only thing that matters, according to Pops, is keeping her safe, which means keeping the pair of them off the grid. 

She huffs out another breath and pushes herself up from the bed, where she's been stretched out and staring at the ceiling. The room's only fifteen steps wide, from bed to small, cramped kitchenette, and she stalks backwards and forwards a couple of times before even that much is too much effort. Then she stops and stares at her blurred reflection in the mirror instead, the one tucked away in one corner of the cheap room. 

The mirror's as old and dusty as the rest of the place, the surface smeared and grimy. It's tarnished around the edges, spotted dark grey where the backing has bubbled away, but she can still make out her reflection.

She knows she's too scrawny, and her reflection shows that only too clearly. She's all long, skinny limbs and barely budding breasts in her second-hand cotton bra, nothing but scabbed knees and fading bruises. She doesn’t look like a warrior. She doesn't look like anything much; just some scared, wide-eyed kid who should be in school but whose crazy Pops is instead dragging her from one abandoned ghost town to another.

She moves closer to the mirror, wiping her hand over the grimy surface, but all that does is smear the dirt around. She still looks too small, too fragile, even when she scowls. She wants to look tougher, like looking tougher will make her feel tough, too. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but Pops says they should blend in better.

She doesn't blend, but Pops doesn't blend in either. He just blends in better than she does, especially here.

She sighs, blowing her bangs out of her face. Maybe she should cut her hair short, or pierce her ears a couple more times. Anything that could make her feel as tough as she's supposed to be.

A sound catches her attention and she scowls again, grabbing her t-shirt and pulling it on over her head. It's too small, barely reaching her waist, and it feels tight where she's tender in the chest – she's just had a growth spurt but Pops hasn’t picked up new clothes for her yet. She hates that, too, the way that her body is changing, like everything else in her life. Thank god her jeans still fasten, even though they're starting to get threadbare at the knees and skim above her ankles.

They won't last long, not unless she patches them, and there's no enthusiasm in the thought as she heads towards the window, keeping out of sight the way Pops insists she does as she peers down onto the street below.

The bikers are back, and she takes a second to watch them without being watched in return, tucked away out of sight.

She likes the bikes – they're the kind that don't look pretty but are fast and tough, something almost mean in the sharp lines of them, dangerous and wild. But the problem with bikes like that is that they come with bikers, bikers who are just as dusty and just as dirty as the whole town, built for off-the-grid as much as off-the-road. 

Even so, for a second she envies them, for the freedom those bikes bring.

It only lasts a second. She's not stupid. She knows why Pops brought her here. It's the same reason Pops takes her anywhere – so she can learn how to fight, how to shoot, how to hunt and kill if necessary. Off-the-grid means weapons, contacts. Another step in the plan to keep her safe, another brick in that wall.

There'll be no bikes like that for her. Pops will say that they're too dangerous.

She's tired of it; it's nothing but holding patterns until Kyle Reese sticks a baby in her and she gives birth to the saviour of the fucking world. 

A shiver goes through her even thinking the word 'fuck', something uneasy that leaves a bad taste in her mouth, and she scowls again, squashing it down.

Marcie is down there with the bikers, Marcie with her dyed black hair and leather jacket. Marcie is cool, confident in a way that Sarah envies. Marcie doesn't have a bike of her own, but she has Snake, who smells like oil and smoke and who's missing three front teeth. He grins whenever he sees Sarah, and there's something in his eyes when he does that leaves her uneasy. But Marcie is tough, all lean sinew and hard eyes wrapped up in a 'doesn't give a shit' attitude. 

Marcie is tough the way that Sarah wants to be.

Marcie has tattoos. Sarah's seen the stiletto knife on her forearm, dripping blood down onto her wrist, and the rose with bloodied thorns on her back. Snake has tattoos, too. They all do, spiders and cobwebs and skulls with flaming eyes, their toughness carved into their skin. 

Pops doesn't, but Pops doesn't need them to blend in with this crowd. Even without the ink, no one messes with him, which means no one should mess with his kid either, but that's the thing about living on the edges – sometimes other people have reasons to hide, and not all of them are on her and Pops' side.

She sighs and leans in closer to the window. Marcie must spot the movement, because she looks up, squinting in the bright sunlight as she shields her eyes from the sun, and then catches sight of Sarah and grins, sketching out a wave with one hand.

Great. Now Pops will know she's been seen, which means she'll get another lecture about keeping out of sight. And she thought school was bad.

Bang on cue, Pops looks up, although his expression doesn't change when he sees her. His expression never changes, but maybe she's the only one who still thinks that's weird. The bikers don't seem to mind – they probably think it makes him even tougher, that weird guy who never smiles, dragging his scrawny daughter behind him wherever he goes.

She pulls back, pulling the curtains half shut again and moving back into the room. She scowls again at her reflection in the mirror as she passes it, and this time her reflection looks pissed off. 

Yeah, like a pissed off twelve-year-old. Really scary. That's sure to have the T-1000 running scared.

Maybe she'll get a snake, have it wind around her bicep, hissing over her shoulder. That would be pretty cool, right? Some of the guys have snakes, just like some of them have skulls. Some – like Johansson – even have both, and that's the other thing about living outside the law – no one would give a shit if anyone from the crew they're currently running with gave a twelve-year-old a tattoo.

No one but Pops. And Pops wouldn't care for the same reasons that normal people would care, the ones she sees in shopping malls sometimes, or on TV. The ones she vaguely thinks her parents might have been. Normal people would care because they'd worry about what that said about her being a bad influence, or coming from the wrong side of the tracks.

Pops would care because it would be an identifying mark, something to draw attention, to give her away. Something to identify her as Sarah Connor.

Sarah's scowl deepens, and, yeah, this time the expression does look a little scarier. Maybe.

It will have to do. Because there's no way in hell Pops will let her have a tattoo.

-o-

Sarah is sixteen the first time that Pops sews her up. 

It's not the first time he's patched her up; she's had more than her fair share of bumps and scrapes over the years, more than any other kid her age, which means that Pops is now an old hand at wielding a Band-Aid or two. But this is the first time that the T-1000 has come this close to fulfilling its mission parameters.

It was too close tonight, way too close. Even Sarah can see that much and it's a sobering thought. Not the dying part – she's always known that's a possibility – but that she'd die now, before John is born, before she even has a chance to fight back against Skynet instead of just running away and hiding.

Yeah, it's chilling.

Pops drives the needle into her flesh, and she tightens her jaw, clenching her teeth against the whimper that wants to slither out. Instead she focuses on cursing the fact that she was a little too slow, tonight, a little too confident in Pops' ability to protect her to keep the pain at bay. She needs to be better, faster.

Tougher.

"I estimate it will take three more stitches to repair the tear in your skin to a level that will permit optimal healing," Pops says as the needle digs into her skin again.

She guesses that's what passes for comforting in Pops' lexicon. "I'm fine," she insists, knowing it’s a lie but not wanting to admit as much. Her jaw is so tight now that the words come out harshly, tougher than Sarah feels.

Maybe she imagines it, but for a moment she thinks that Pops might hesitate before he makes the next stitch, not that it stops him. It shouldn't.

"Two more stitches," he says even as she feels the needle sliding through her skin, the tug of the thread after it. It's a nauseating sensation and she swallows heavily, feeling her stomach roil.

"I'm fine," she says again. "There's no need to give me a running commentary."

Pops doesn't say anything else for a long moment, long enough for that moment to stretch out like taffy, full of things that are just as sticky and likely to trap her if she's not careful.

She bites the bullet, metaphorically if not literally.

"I should have been quicker," she says. "Not let it get the drop on me."

It's as close as she can get to an apology, not the Pops needs anything like an apology. Maybe it's just that she needs to apologise, although she's not sure for what. It's not like Pops can actually worry about her.

"Given the T-1000's programming and capabilities," Pops says, "it was always possible that an encounter of this nature would occur at some point. In that event, the probability of injury was 38.7%."

"Oh. That low?" She tries to turn it into a joke. It falls flat, even before Pops continues.

"If such an encounter were to happen at this junction, the probability of the T-1000 succeeding in its mission and terminating Sarah Connor was 31.3%."

That's… That's high. Higher than Sarah had thought, when she let herself think about it, too confident in Pops' ability to protect her.

"Well, in that case," she says, "I'm glad I beat the probabilities."

Pops doesn't answer, unless sticking her with the needle again counts as an answer. Who knows, with Pops' programming.

It hurts, and this time she curls her fingers into fists as well as clenching her jaw, staring down at the small scars that litter her hands, the nick by the base of her thumb where she lost her grip during knife practice, the small burn mark by her knuckle where a hot shell casing hit. They mark out the years she's spent with Pops.

She thought she was getting better at protecting herself.

"Was?" she asks, because focusing on Pops' words is better than focusing on the pain.

Pops pauses, and it's only when his fingers leave her skin that she realises he's placed his last stitch.

"In the event of the T-1000 locating Sarah Connor again, I estimate the probability of Sarah Connor surviving the encounter to have increased to 87.8% providing that there are adequate escape routes."

"Good to know."

He says nothing, taping down the bandage over her injury with the kind of precision that only a robot could apply. Cyborg. Only a cyborg could apply. Pops has always been a stickler for the correct terminology.

She pulls on a clean shirt while he washes her blood off his hands, not bothering to hide her wince when the stitches tug.

He's watching her when she looks back up again from fastening her buttons, his face as impassive and unreadable as ever. "Bet that's going to leave a scar, right?"

"Yes."

She rolls her eyes, knowing that the joke was going to pass straight over his head, but somehow obscurely disappointed anyway. "Is that going to be an issue?"

He tilts his head slightly, and that's new, something that could almost pass for curiosity.

"The scar," she clarifies. "An identifying mark. Is it going to cause an issue?"

Maybe he's been around her too long because he catches on without any further explanation. "If the T-1000 is close enough to see the scar, then it will be close enough to see your face."

That's another new thing; Pops not referring to her in the third person. She kind of likes it.

"Cool," she says, reaching for her jacket. "If it's my face that's an issue, maybe I'll get a tattoo after all."

She's probably imagining the disapproving look on his face. 

Probably.

-o-

Sarah is twenty the first time that she lets herself trace the tattoo on Kyle's forearm.

It's not the first time she's touched him. It's not even the first time she's touched him when the pair of them have been like this, curled up together under generic bedsheets in a generic motel room. She's brushed the hair out of his face, traced the laughter lines around his eyes, mapped the scars scattered across his body like starbursts, just like he's mapped out hers with his fingertips. She's even wrapped her fingers around his wrists, pinning him to the bed as she moves above him, when both of them know it's not the strength in her arms that keeps him there.

But this… In some weird way, this has been off limits.

Sarah's not stupid. Kyle doesn't talk much about his past – a few stories about John, yes, and his parents, no matter how painful those conversations have been. But he doesn't talk about the machines, what they've done to him, even though no human tattooist would mark out lines so neatly and she can't think of a single, solitary reason why any human post-Skynet would mark their bodies with a barcode anyway.

Kyle watches her, his eyes sleepy and his face content. She likes this, she's decided – these quiet moments between the two of them, Pops off doing whatever it is that Pops now does while Sarah and Kyle just be.

"Work camp," he says eventually, and she slows the movement of her fingers, letting them rest against his skin, right over the first number. "I got it just before the Resistance attacked and broke us out, right before John found me in the tunnels, and the rest – as they say – is history."

His smile is bittersweet for a moment, shadows behind his eyes that he's usually better at hiding.

"Or future that hasn't happened, I suppose."

"It happened to you," she says quietly. "So it happened."

He makes a sound, something that isn’t quite agreement, but when she searches his face, he seems happy enough. The shadows have faded at least, and that's something.

That's everything.

"It's not going to happen again," she says, probably with more confidence than she feels. "We'll make sure of that."

His smile widens, something both sweeter and fiercer in it, and her stomach does the slow roll and flip that she's becoming very used to.

She flattens her palm against his skin. "I thought of getting a tattoo, once," she says, peering up at him from underneath her eyelashes.

"Yeah?" His hand skims along her side, settling on her bare hip, and there's a playful note in his voice, one she's happy to hear.

"Yeah."

She doesn't elaborate, avoiding his eyes as she curls her fingers and lets her fingernails scratch lightly against his skin. When he tilts his head to try and make out her expression, she can't hold in the small, smug smile any more.

"And?" There's amusement in his voice, a lightness to it that makes her smile widen, too.

"And what?"

"And what were you thinking of getting?" She gives him what she hopes is a mysterious look, and he rolls his eyes a little. But he's still smiling, and she'll take that as a win. "I have to guess?"

"Why not?"

He shifts a little on the mattress to make himself more comfortable, and props his head up on one hand as he studies her. "A pulse rifle?"

"Nuh huh. Didn't have them in the 1980s, still don't have them now. Guess again."

"All this modern technology," he grumbles, "and they're still relying on cartridges."

She pokes him in the chest. "You used weapons that fire cartridges. Don't pull that shit on me, Reese."

"Yeah, but we had cool weapons, too."

Now it's her turn to roll her eyes. "Guess again," she says, more forcefully this time.

He considers it for a moment, his face creased in thought. "A dog?" he asks. "Something big and slavering with lots of teeth?"

Dogs and weapons. She thinks that says it all. About both of them, probably.

"Close," she says, already bored of this game when Kyle is right there, warm and smiling, completely content. "A snake, I think. Maybe. It was a long time ago, back when I was a kid. Maybe a skull."

"A skull?"

"That was the year we spent a lot of time with biker gangs. Flaming skulls were a thing."

"Oh. Not just a skull, but a **flaming** skull. That's totally different."

He's probably seen a lot of skulls, she thinks suddenly, and it's a sobering thought. But Kyle still looks happy – if she's stirring any memories, he's hiding it better than she would if their roles were reversed.

So she plays along, poking him in the chest again. "Maybe I should make you get a tattoo of a kitten," she threatens. Kittens are Kyle's latest thing – dogs he understands, given their ability to sense terminators, but cats were food, not pets in his time and he’s still struggling to get his head around it. In her weaker moments she thinks about maybe picking one up from a shelter, just to see something that small and vulnerable being cradled in Kyle's large, competent hands.

He'd be gentle with it, just like he's gentle with her in spite of his scars and his battle skills.

"No tattoos," he says softly, "kittens or otherwise."

She doesn't push it, not when that bittersweet smile reappears on his face. Instead she moves her fingers away from his forearm and the mark it bears and lets them stroke over the scars on his shoulder instead.

He has enough marks on his skin, and so does she, with all of the memories they bring. They don't need anyone else to put them there.

She just needs this.

the end


End file.
